'It's never gone away, the impact of that punch in the face': New questions about abuse in schools
Of Schools Brian For Irish Picture: Punishment In The Publicly First Hears Corporal Time The Examines From About Out Lougheed Speaking Their Are And Survivors, Experiences Whom Many Documentary
Survivors of physical abuse in schools have called for the ongoing statutory inquiry into sexual abuse in schools to be widened to include corporal punishment.
Despite millions of children attending school during the years corporal punishment was in place, the Department of Education holds just 117 records of physical abuse of children by teachers.
This comes as survivors speak out about a culture of state-endorsed violence that they say shattered their lives.
They are now calling on the government to include physical abuse in the terms of reference of the ongoing statutory inquiry into historical sexual abuse in schools run by religious orders.
The revelations are included in an RTÉ documentary which will be broadcast tonight.
The documentary examines corporal punishment in Irish schools and hears from survivors, many of whom are speaking out publicly for the first time about their experiences.
Poet and author Theo Dorgan told the documentary about his schooldays in Cork.
“When the door closes and you are in a confined environment, it’s predator and prey—if you looked at a teacher the wrong way, you would get a slap.”
His lifelong friend and schoolmate, film festival co-director Mick Hannigan, remembers, “It was not so much a daily occurrence but an hourly occurrence, class after class.”
“If you got a sum wrong, if you got some difficult Irish poem wrong, then you were punished.”
Eoin Costello tells the documentary about one day in his Kilkenny school when silence descended over his classroom.
“I saw this shadow on the glass door at the entrance to the room. He marched literally with closed fists, punched and then punched…and then turned on his heel and walked out.
“It never went away. Forty years. It's never gone away the impact of that punch in the face."
New figures released to RTÉ by the Department of Education show that between 1962 and 1982, just 108 allegations involving physical abuse by teachers against pupils were recorded by the Department.
More than three quarters of these allegations included allegations of other forms of abuse; 87 of the allegations were at primary level where children as young as four attended school. 21 were at second level.
During the same period, millions of students went through the State education system.
The Department of Education holds a further nine allegations for the five years after the introduction of the 1982 ban on corporal punishment in schools, 1982 to 1987.
airs tonight, Wednesday October 30 at 9.35pm on and .